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A review by leesmyth
The Surgeon's Mate by Patrick O'Brian
5.0
Not a quick read for me, but what a tremendous ending!!
One quote particularly struck my eye today. Stephen has the oppotunity to observe a middle-aged woman sharing a carriage with Diana for several minutes. She is über-fashionably dressed and Stephen considers her “good-looking in a hard, determined way, a fair example of the Napoleonic court, not Diana's style at all, at all” (347).
In The Hobbit, Bilbo likewise has the opportunity to observe three trolls before they become aware of him. He recognizes them as trolls due to their great heavy faces, “and their size, and the shape of their legs, not to mention their language, which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all.”
I doubt O'Brian had The Hobbit in mind here, but I love that Bilbo and Stephen have essentially the same reaction to vulgarity, expressed in similar language.
One quote particularly struck my eye today. Stephen has the oppotunity to observe a middle-aged woman sharing a carriage with Diana for several minutes. She is über-fashionably dressed and Stephen considers her “good-looking in a hard, determined way, a fair example of the Napoleonic court, not Diana's style at all, at all” (347).
In The Hobbit, Bilbo likewise has the opportunity to observe three trolls before they become aware of him. He recognizes them as trolls due to their great heavy faces, “and their size, and the shape of their legs, not to mention their language, which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all.”
I doubt O'Brian had The Hobbit in mind here, but I love that Bilbo and Stephen have essentially the same reaction to vulgarity, expressed in similar language.